Still Nintendo Switch’s #1 Game in my Book

It’s been a solid four months since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been released now. Now that every cave, canyon, and mountain has been explored we have ventured onto other games like Mario Kart and Arms.

The Switch’s top game is an experience that was well–Breathtaking. Breath of the Wild is a game that I constantly want to go back to but find myself thinking well where do we go from here? Nintendo has released a new DLC pack for the game to give the players a reason to go back. I find that the new DLC reminded me of how much I wanted to play Zelda. It is so much fun to explore even after beating the final boss. The game is so solid it doesn’t need any multiplayer to rekindle replay value. Prepare to be pleasantly surprised by how much you’ll want to get back into this game.

This DLC pack also includes another expansion that will be released in the holiday season this year too. Details for that Expansion has yet to be released.

DLC Breakdown Review

Trials & Hard Mode

Trial of the Sword is a difficult mission that strips away all your armor, weapons, and abilities. This trial is floor by floor challenge that is both very difficult and rewarding. The rewards aren’t the craziest but definitely worth the work! (I won’t spoil it.) Similar to the the island challenge at the lower east corner of the map. This mission is a true test of patience, skill and survival. Using only what they give you I found myself busting down trees just to get some acorns for heath in dire times. Finding different strategies to overcome these challenges was also half the fun. Oh, P.S. if you die you have to start all over.

Master Mode is something I have barely touched upon. However upon starting it I noticed we have a silver Lynel (THE hardest enemy in the game) posted up in the training area! I’ll get back to this later but definitely would be a ton of fun for some die-hard fan looking for a challenge.

Features

Hero’s Path is actually secretly my favorite part of the DLC. The map records the last 200 hours of game play and maps it out for you step by step. You can see everywhere you’ve been and where you’ve died. Upon starting my previously saved file I found that I have barely hit half of the recorded steps. Remember how we thought we had explored everything? Well I thought wrong. Thanks to the Hero’s Path I can go off to the places where I know for sure I haven’t been yet and delve into more of this universe that I’ve grown to love. This added feature to the map definitely had me jumped back into this game. I have already put in a solid amount of hours exploring forests where I had missed out on in my original play though.

The travel medallion is kind of like Farore’s Wind from Ocarina of Time. Once you find the medallion you may set a teleportation spot for yourself anywhere you’re currently standing. Really useful if you want to go back and stock up or explore the bottom of a mountain after you just climbed it without worry of having to climb back up. The travel medallion would have been really useful in the game originally but I can see it making the game a little too easy and take away a bit from the exploration aspect. I set mine currently to the Colosseum for Lynel and elemental weapon farming.

The Loot

The new armor is probably the most disappointing part of the DLC. We get a handful of quests to explore a portion of the map that’s littered with pretty easy riddles as to where you can find this new armor. We get a bunch of nods to past Zelda games where you can dress up as a Phantom, Tingle, or wear Midna and Majora’s Mask. The quests are short and simple and can be completed in a couple hours. The quests provided a fun hunt but I didn’t feel like I really got much out of it. The new equipment do pretty much the same stuff your other armor already does but they can’t even be upgraded by the Great Fairy so what’s the point?

The Korok seeds are something I didn’t really get around to collecting too many of. This mask is my savior. Now I am able to so seed hunting and upgrade my weapon slots. With the Hero’s Path and the Korok mask I’ve found myself adventuring all over Hyrule looking for all the things I’ve missed and it’s great. I realize that Breath of the Wild has set the bar for Switch games a bit too high because really I just want to play Zelda.

Wild’n Out

So in short the Breath of the Wild’s New DLC comes with a bunch of cool features and easy quests accompanied with one really extensive challenge and a ridiculous hard mode. Is it worth it? I’ve probably milked an extra 8 hours or so out of this new DLC so far. I still have the final tier of the Trial of the Sword to complete and much more exploring thanks to the map features. In my opinion that’s 20 dollars well spent. The best part of the DLC is that we have more coming this Holiday and it’s already paid for!

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An SF Bay Area native, perfect imperfectionist, and everyday legend. Photographer extraordinaire, master of analysis on the gaming scene, and creative professional. Sketching on the daily, traveling on the regular.

He's a hot off the press graphic designer who's got fresh ideas that are even hotter. He specializes in photography, Illustration and packaging design, but has also done typography, web design, and print design. He's led multiple projects for clients around the Bay Area. He left California State University East Bay with a B.A. in graphic design looking to redesign the world for the better.

He's passionate about everything design, art, and hip hop. Making things functional and aesthetically pleasing at the same time is something he wants todo for everyone. However, that just might be humanly impossible. So he'll start by doing so little by little.

An SF Bay Area native, perfect imperfectionist, and everyday legend. Photographer extraordinaire, master of analysis on the gaming scene, and creative professional. Sketching on the daily, traveling on the regular. He's a hot off the press graphic designer who's got fresh ideas that are even hotter. He specializes in photography, Illustration and packaging design, but has also done typography, web design, and print design. He's led multiple projects for clients around the Bay Area. He left California State University East Bay with a B.A. in graphic design looking to redesign the world for the better. He's passionate about everything design, art, and hip hop. Making things functional and aesthetically pleasing at the same time is something he wants to do for everyone. However, that just might be humanly impossible. So he'll start by doing so little by little.